Seer PVE Healing Guide (1.3)

As I note at the beginning, take it all with a grain of salt, and ultimately exercise your own judgement.

That being said, the only situation where I'd consider not using Force Armor in rotation on the tank is during Kephess' final stages with two Sage healers in 8-man. There's nothing else in the game where I'd worry about spikes enough to deliberately exclude it. YMMV.

If we're presuming a high HPS situation (as Angel says, this is somewhat irrelevant if it's low-burden maintenance healing), refreshing Force Armor on the tank has some solid advantages:

2. It doesn't put Trance on cooldown.
3. It's more force-efficient than un-Conveyed Deliverance (which is going to have to be your filler otherwise).
2. It's an instant, which leaves you more time to NS/heal someone else. Ultimately you'll be doing more healing too.

I agree with your points, but it is my personal preference to heal up small damage with Rejuvenate and throw in a conveyance-HT if the health difference warrants that rather than just throw up Force Armor once Force-Imbalanced is off. Having said that, throwing down Force Armor as soon as I can does allow me to slack off on the healing to help dps or idle to regen force. For situations calling for high HPS, I do keep Force Armor up as soon as possible.

As you have mentioned, it's up to personal preference and deciding which way to go fits your playstyle and group more.

I'm afraid I have to strictly disagree with you here. The bottom line is that point for point, Willpower will increase your healing output by more than Power will. Willpower is simply better, and how much crit rating you're chosen to stack is irrelevant here.

Ignoring Willpower's benefit to Critical chance and speaking solely on Bonus Healing, Power still has a larger increase on Bonus Healing. I just swapped out Augments on my PvP gear (which has much less Willpower than my PvE gear) from Overkill to Resolve and I lost 0.3 Bonus healing per augment when I went to Resolve even with Will of the Jedi and class buffs. I'm not trying to argue that Overkill augments are better to use than Resolve, I'm just stating the math of their effects on Bonus Healing.

EDIT: Just to add to the this, I do now realize that Resolve augments are better than Overkill augments have seeing and doing the math. I'm just clarifying that the Bonus Healing itself still gains more from Power than Willpower, but the overall healing is increased more from Willpower.

Personally, I don't like to keep force armor up on the tank at all times. I rather prefer to keep it to times when the tank has taken a big spike.

This is one of those things that twists my brain a bit... but does it really make that much difference?

Bubbles in their nature can't over-heal unless they run out before being used up - which should never happen on a tank. So whenever you cast the bubble, that amount of healing will be done - at whatever point it happens. The spikes in ToR aren't usually big enough to kill a decent tank outright, so the tank will only die if he already had some unhealed damage before the spike... or if he continues taking unhealed extra damage after the spike.

1) If you cast the bubble early, then it absorbs damage in the period leading up to the spike, so your tank is more likely to be at high health or even 100% when the spike hits - which means that there will be less healing required to heal back up to 'OK'.... so you need less of a burst.

2) If you cast the bubble after the spike, it absorbs the steady incoming damage, giving you some space to heal back up to 'OK'... so you need less of a burst.

In both situations, the bubble is absorbing 'standard' incoming damage in order to help reduce the need for burst healing. It's really just a question of whether that standard damage is absorbed before or after the spike, which shouldn't actually have an effect on the outcome.

You might say, that normal damage in advance of the spike would be covered by your normal healing anyway, so you didn't need the bubble. But if you look at it that way... then you're also using heal CDs on normal healing before the spike - which means that you have less ability to react with heals when the spike hits, because some abilities are more likely to be on CD.

All in all, I'm not sure that the 'save it for spikes' argument is as compelling as it seems. There may be a small benefit in some situations to holding back with it... but that benefit would be generally countered by losing an amount off your standard healing output throughout the fight as a result of holding back the bubble and so not using it as much as you could have been.

It's a tough one. Certainly not as clear as it may have seemed at first.

This is one of those things that twists my brain a bit... but does it really make that much difference?

Bubbles in their nature can't over-heal unless they run out before being used up - which should never happen on a tank. So whenever you cast the bubble, that amount of healing will be done - at whatever point it happens. The spikes in ToR aren't usually big enough to kill a decent tank outright, so the tank will only die if he already had some unhealed damage before the spike... or if he continues taking unhealed extra damage after the spike.

1) If you cast the bubble early, then it absorbs damage in the period leading up to the spike, so your tank is more likely to be at high health or even 100% when the spike hits - which means that there will be less healing required to heal back up to 'OK'.... so you need less of a burst.

2) If you cast the bubble after the spike, it absorbs the steady incoming damage, giving you some space to heal back up to 'OK'... so you need less of a burst.

In both situations, the bubble is absorbing 'standard' incoming damage in order to help reduce the need for burst healing. It's really just a question of whether that standard damage is absorbed before or after the spike, which shouldn't actually have an effect on the outcome.

You might say, that normal damage in advance of the spike would be covered by your normal healing anyway, so you didn't need the bubble. But if you look at it that way... then you're also using heal CDs on normal healing before the spike - which means that you have less ability to react with heals when the spike hits, because some abilities are more likely to be on CD.

All in all, I'm not sure that the 'save it for spikes' argument is as compelling as it seems. There may be a small benefit in some situations to holding back with it... but that benefit would be generally countered by losing an amount off your standard healing output throughout the fight as a result of holding back the bubble and so not using it as much as you could have been.

It's a tough one. Certainly not as clear as it may have seemed at first.

X

Hmm... the point I was trying to make is that I'll rather use my other heals to keep the tank up while I am capable of doing so, i.e. HT off CD, within range, not having to move, etc.

Allow me to give an example. When doing 16m Firebrand and Stormcaller on HM, during defensive systems and the SC tank is running around dropping the lightning spires, I prefer to save force armor till right before the tank jumps back onto SC after the end of the phase. I know that shortly after he jumps back on, he'll take a massive hit from the frontal aoe of SC and that brings him down to 40-50% from near 100% even with force armor on. In this case while running back from the shields on the ground, I'm not in a position to throw out heals immediately. Had force armor been used earlier, the risk of the tank dying increases, especially if the tank wasn't topped to near full health while dropping the spires and taking mortar volleys.

I have to admit that such cases are rare and few and in other situations, keeping force armor up on the tank may end up being more beneficial. Having said that, I'm not always healing the tank alone and having force armor ready on demand for the tank is helpful when there is a need for healing.

My usual healing rotation for the tank is to use Rejuvenate when hp is at the high 80%s, HT when it falls down to 70%s, and a follow up with Deliverance if necessary after the HT. Force armor if tank hp is still not above 70% after that before HT comes off CD.

For one or two very unusual situations, then yes you may be right. The situation would generally have to be, where your target is taking very little damage in the period before a very predictable spike. Then yes you might want to hold back a bit.... but only marginally.

Thanks so much for the guide!
Seer Healer help online is kinda in short supply, and I need all the help I can get!
I need to ask for some advice regards stacking/gearing/l2p/everything.

We've done all the HMs upto EC, and we do clear EC storymode sometimes, but Kephess is a bastard.
I'm really battling to keep the tank up, to the point that I simply noble sacrifice throughout the beginning phases of the fight to keep myself at 100% mana till the big robot dies.
In the last phase I typically spam the tank with Deliverance, even if he's at 100% hp, because he'll be almost dead by the time it lands.

And it's so untypical of my normal rotation.
I pretty much shield the tank, pop a salvation where the action is and wait for hp bars to start moving.
If I know a fight is mana intensive, I'll typically be close enough to my salvation, as to get benefit from it.
My rule of thumb is: If I'm at 100% health, I pop noble twice.
That pretty much gets me close to 100% mana if I'm standing in my salvation, I'll float between 83% and 100% health.

Typically I only cast deliverance if I have popped Force Potency. Which means I only cast Deliverance twice, maybe 3 times if it refuse to crit on a cast on rare occasions.
I typically only cast healing trance after rejuvinate, and the 2 might be used on different targets.

When a raid members is very low on health I use a couple of different rotations, depending on the situation.
If it's a tank, and he/she cannot get shielded I typically use a rejuvinate for the 1k instant heal, and try to keep him up with a crit stim and healing trance. If he's not quite that critically low on hp, but cannot be shielded, I typically use Force potency and 2x deliverance. If the tank is not critical, I typically just shield, drop a aoe heal, stand in it, noble twice, pop a rejuvinate on him. If required I'll finish off with a healing trance. Ops members that are just taking the odd bit of splash damage either get a split rejuv and healing trance, or just rejuvs, maybe the odd shield if there's random targetting involved.

Arulan's spreadsheet seems to suggest I might be low on alacrity, and I'm thinking it might have a point.
Also my relics. I have a matrix cube and a mending.
I tend to forget to activate activatable relics, but maybe I should just learn to use that as I do my crit stim.
Should I get the rakata alacrity stim? I have the power stim, but havn't found a use for it, as I always use the crit stim when things go pear shaped.

I really would appreciate any input as I feel I'm letting group down when we die repeatedly on Kephess. It almost feels like a fluke when we do actually down him. I don't like it when I encounter damage on our group that I simply cannot cope with.

Should I get the rakata alacrity stim? I have the power stim, but havn't found a use for it, as I always use the crit stim when things go pear shaped.

If you mean Adrenals (the short duration, long cooldown Potion-like effects), you should always be using Power ones. The sheer amount of rating given by these (even after the nerf) is sufficient to push ANY DRing stat so far along the curve that you'll end up getting only very minor benefit from most of it. Power is non-DR'd, and in literally every situation possible, it will provide you with more output.

If you mean Adrenals (the short duration, long cooldown Potion-like effects), you should always be using Power ones. The sheer amount of rating given by these (even after the nerf) is sufficient to push ANY DRing stat so far along the curve that you'll end up getting only very minor benefit from most of it. Power is non-DR'd, and in literally every situation possible, it will provide you with more output.

Thanks, and yes, I was talking about adrenals soz.

And though anural's spreadsheet seems to be suggesting Alacrity, I've played around with the numbers a bit, and I cannot get a substantial gain with realistic/attainable increases in Alacrity.
For instace, pushing alacrity to 400 from 312, and pretending that all my other stats will remain the same during this regearing, only yield a deliverance cast time reduction from 2.26 to 2.21. Something I don't really feel is worth it.
With a 475 adrenal I get it down to 2.03s, but as you said, that's a long cooldown to splash on something that yields this little benefit.

I will definitely try your suggestion on popping the power adrenal. It might just be the push I'm needing.
What about a relic? Power as well?

I personally recommend using a Power use-relic on fights you're still learning, or fights you know that require a burst healing phase you otherwise wouldn't be able to handle (or handling it would burn too much Force). On fights you know and don't need the additional on-demand burst for, use a pair of War Hero relics, as they give the best overall benefit from the slot.

Don't bother with the Mending Relic, even the campaign one isn't worth it in the end. After parsing, it usually only accounted for ~1.6% of my healing, less than Mend Wounds would do on some fights that required a debuff cleanse. Plus the Mending relic isn't always going to the target you wish it to be healing. Replacing it with an activated Power relic, as Daellia said, would be more beneficial in the long run. If you aren't against PvPing you should definitely look into the War Hero relics. A +113 boost to Alacrity, Power, or both is a massive gain and allows for some great itemization.

For your concerns about Alacrity, I try to keep it at least at or above 11.8%. Keeping Deliverance at 2.2 is ideal I find, and if you have your Alacrity a bit higher you can also get Salvation's and Trance's cast time a bit lower as well which never hurts.

I would also say your Power is a bit low, but that's coming from the healer who has it 1000+ unbuffed.

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The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites.